Practice Your English Pronunciation /f/ vs /h/ Sounds in this best English pronunciation course.

I'm going to focus on two consonant sounds in English.

The /f/ sound and the /h/ sound.

These are very important sounds in English,

so I want you to be able to pronounce them correctly.

Let's start with two example words.

The first example word is the word ‘fat’.

Can you hear the /f/ sound?

‘fat’

Now, the second word is ‘hat’.

This time it's an /h/ sound, ‘hat’.

‘fat’

‘hat’

Can you hear the difference?

Well if you keep watching,

we are going to practice together.

And I promise you by the end of this video,

you will pronounce them correctly.

So keep watching.

Before we learn

about these two consonant sounds

the f /f/ sound and the h /h/ sound in English,

you need to know about the I.P.A. spelling.

It's very important.

You can also watch me, and how I move my mouth,

and of course always try to repeat after me.

I know you can make these sounds, guys,

so let's do it together now.

Let's first learn how to make the /f/ sound in English.

So it's an unvoiced sound.

You are not going to use your voice.

You're not going to feel any vibration in your throat.

And what you're going to do

is put your teeth against your bottom lip,

and you're going to push out some air

through your teeth and bottom lip, okay.

/f/

Please try and do it. Repeat after me.

/f/

/f/

/f/

Let's practice with the word ‘fat’.

Please repeat after me.

‘fat’

‘fat’

‘fat’

Good.

Let's now practice producing the sound /h/ in English.

So as you can see

your mouth is wide open.

It's voiceless as well, so no… no sound.

No vibration.

Mouth wide open

and you're going to push out the air

with your throat.

It has to come from down there, so… /h/

Please watch my mouth, try to repeat after me.

/h/

/h/

/h/

Let's practice with the word ‘hat’.

Please repeat after me.

‘hat’

‘hat’

‘hat’

Good.

Let's now practice with minimal pairs;

two words

they sound very very much alike

but the sounds are actually different

and they are very good

for you to hear the difference between the two sounds.

But first, let's practice the sounds themselves.

Please watch my mouth and repeat after me.

First the /f/ sound.

/f/

/f/

/f/

Now the /h/ sound.

/h/

/h/

/h/

Let's do the two sounds together. Please repeat after me.

/f/

/h/

/f/

/h/

/f/

/h/

And now let's take our words.

Please repeat after me, guys.

‘fat’

‘hat’

‘fat’

‘hat’

‘fat’

‘hat’

Good job.

Okay, guys. Let's go through minimal pairs together.

Please watch how I move my mouth

and repeat after me.

Let's get started.

faced

haste

fad

had

fail

hail

fair

hair

fall

hall

fang

hang

fare

hare

farm

harm

fart

heart

fate

hare

fear

hear

fed

head

fee

he

feed

heed

feel

heel

fees

he's

feet

heat

fell

hell

fence

hence

fey

hey

fight

height

fill

hill

fir

her

fit

hit

five

hive

fizz

his

foal

whole

foam

home

foe

hoe

foes

hoes

fog

hog

force

horse

found

hound

four

haw

fowl

howl

funky

hunky

funny

honey

furl

hurl

phase

haze

phone

hone

Great job, guys.

Let's now practice with sentences

containing these consonant sounds.

The first sentence is:

‘Please feel her fur heel.’

Please repeat after me.

‘Please feel her fur heel.’

The second sentence:

‘The whole foal has fair hair.’

Please repeat after me.

‘The whole foal has fair hair.’

Good.And finally:

‘He'd feed the hog in the fog.’

Please repeat.

‘He'd feed the hog in the fog.’

Very good.

Let's move on.

Let's now move on to listening practice.

I'm now going to show you two words.

I will say one of the two words,

and I want you to listen very carefully

and to tell me

if this word is, ‘a)’ or ‘b)’

Let's get started.

Let's start with our first words.

You see you have word ‘a’ word ‘b’.

Now which one do I say?

Listen.

‘hair’

One more time.

‘hair’

Was this ‘a’ or ‘b’?

‘b’,

hair.

‘a’ would be pronounced

‘fair’.

Our next two words.

Listen to me, guys.

‘funny’

‘funny’

It's ‘a’, ‘funny’.

‘b’ would be ‘honey’.

‘horse’

‘horse’

‘It's ‘b’, ‘horse’.

‘a’ is ‘force’.

What about this one? Listen.

‘hence’

‘hence’

It's ‘b’ guys, ‘hence’.

‘a’ is fence.

‘fog’

‘fog’

It's ‘a’, ‘fog’.

‘b’ would be ‘hog’.

Listen to me.

‘fowl’

‘fowl’

It's ‘a’, ‘fowl’.

‘b’ is ‘howl’.

‘feet’

‘feet’

‘a’? ‘b’? What do you think?

It's ‘a’ guys, ‘feet’.

‘b’ is heat.

‘hear’

‘hear’

It’s ‘b’ guys, ‘hear’.

‘a’ would be pronounced ‘fear’.

‘fall’

‘fall’

It's ‘a’ guys, ‘fall’.

‘b’ is ‘hall’.

And our last two words.

Now listen to me.

‘haste’

‘haste’

It's ‘b’, ‘haste’.

‘a’ would be ‘faced’.

Great job, guys.

I know you now understand the difference

between this /f/ sound and this /h/ sound in English.

Of course it takes a lot more practice

to be able to master these sounds

but you can do it.

So keep practicing,

you will also train your ear

to hear the differences between these sound.

And obviously watch my other pronunciation videos.

I promise you they will help you improve your skills.

See you next time.